Topic:
Christmas Reunion, Shepheard's Hotel, Cairo, 1914

Topic type:

December 1914, at a Christmas dinner at Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo, twenty six men of the Canterbury Regiment signed a menu.

December 1914, a reunion of friends, colleagues, soldiers and sporting rivals, celebrating with a Noel dinner. For many this would be their last Christmas and by the following year most had been wounded or killed in action.

It had originally been intended to be “a small spread for about a dozen companions” but so many wanted to join in that 65 in total attended. A story in The Press on 9 February 1915 lists the names of all those who attended.

On a menu from the evening are the signatures of 26 men from the 1st Canterbury Regiment who attended the dinner.